Don’t Forget You are Eating an Animal

Trying out the Paleo, Keto, or Carnivore Diet? Keep this in mind.

I’ve raised and slaughtered many animals over the past few years. At this point in my life I feel like I have a pretty good concept of what it really means to eat an animal. It means that I have killed another creature so that I can live. If I am raising livestock (or in a broader sense,any crop), then I have a responsibility towards that creature to make sure that it had the best life that it could have had under my care, as well as a very swift and painless end.

I believe that in order for us to hunt, gather, or grow our own food, regardless of whatever diet that we follow, we have to take the lives of other living beings, animal or plant, in order to sustain our own.

The new trendy diets, such as Paleo, Primal, Low Carb / High Fat, and Carnivore to name a few, are all based on the products of an animal. The Ketogenic diet can either be plant or animal based, using high fat nuts and avocados in place of meat and lard. But in general, animal flesh is the new black.

Why is this?

Well after decades of wrong-headed assumptions, it turns out that fat, good healthy pasture-raised animal fat, does not cause heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s (some folks think of this disease as another form of diabetes), and cardiovascular complications. Nope, it turns out that one of the main culprits in all of these disorders is sugar, as well as the longer chain sugars: starches — the carbohydrates. Now, cutting edge doctors think that the overconsumption of carbohydrates is responsible for the majority of preventable diet and lifestyle caused health issues and disease. Many health complications arise from the way that carbohydrate cause our insulin levels to rise and fall, instructing our bodies to store excess carbohydrates as fat, while creating chronic inflammation and mood swings that also affect our eating habits. Our diet of carbohydrates along with our sedentary screen-based cultures is causing us to keel over dead from heart attacks at ages as young as 12.

A lot of really smart and passionate people have been diving into the data behind the Ketogenic Diet and other Low Carb / High Fat diets, disseminating dynamic new and dramatically different research and ideas about this new way of eating (WOE), such as Robb Wolf, Tim Ferriss, Mark Sisson, and other health luminaries.

I think it’s all great. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. I love seeing people getting slim and healthy by reintroducing good healthy fats into their diets. They don’t have to suffer to get fit. It’s almost as if a Puritan veil as been lifted and we can all see the truth, finally, behind the mask of Crisco and low-fat cookies. If we eat the right things, we can eat until we’re full of delicious decadent foods, and as long as we stay away from the carbohydrates, we can stay slim and healthy.

It’s a miracle. But it isn’t really, it’s just plain science and old common sense.We’re finding out that we never really needed grains in the first place. The cultivation of grains has been an experiment that’s run its course. Grains are killing us and their cultivation is destroying the planet at the same time.Still, they are an extremely convenient way to store billions of calories and carbohydrates in a stable form, as dry seed. They are not disappearing from the grocer’s shelves anytime soon. Most governments have extensive regulatory and financial systems in place in order to keep grain production flowing at a low cost to corporations. That is why every single food item on your grocery store shelves has corn syrup in the ingredient list — food manufacturers have the cheapest of all drugs available to them courtesy of the largess of our governments and their tax bases, which is us. Essentially, we are funding our own disease and premature death.

Carbohydrates are a deadly addiction, and it’s time that we get over this addiction, before this tsunami of carbohydrate and obesity related health issues becomes too overwhelming for our already taxed to death society.Luckily the paradigm of healthy eating is shifting away from the conventional “food pyramid” as more and more people understand that the best way to wrest control of their own health away from multi-conglomerate food corporations and back into their own hands is to eat real food — basically, organic vegetables and animal products — meat, dairy, and eggs.

One of my sows with her litter.

Just in case you don’t know this basic fact, meat comes from an animal.I farm animals. I produce meat for you to eat on your Primal, Paleo, or Keto diet.

That bacon wrapped burger with extra cheese? That could come from the belly of my pig and a cow that lives out in a friend’s field. All of that good tasty delicious healthy meat based food comes from real living things — animals and plants.

The problem, for me, is that I see a lot of people on these diets eating Wendy’s hamburgers, and I am like — really guys? This is the best that you can do?We don’t want to cut down on the pounds but also contribute to the degradation of our fellow animals and the planet.

I understand it, though. It is tough to pay for the expensive pastured pork in the grocery stores, if you even have that choice in your hometown.But there is another way — buy a a half pig from me for about $500 or so.That’s around 100 pounds of meat, including bacon, ham, pork chops, roasts, and sausage. Yes, you will have to invest a few hundred bucks in a big freezer, maybe, but big deal. You do that occasionally to upgrade your TV or fridge or shoes.

Spending your hard earned money on quality foods is the most important overall investment that you can make for your future health.

A half-hog spread of delicious pork!

I’m concerned that all of these great new dietary and lifestyle concepts will end up being co-opted by a bunch of greedy corporations that don’t give a rat’s ass about you, my animals, or the environment in any real way.

Every animal is unique, every animal deserves a good life. I believe it is a good thing to raise and eat animal products in an ethical and ecological way.

We need to respect the animals, the plants, the soil biotic communities, the overall environment, and very importantly ourselves as well, in order to sustain all life on this planet in the most beautiful and healthy way that we can.

So I ask, no, I plead: Find a farmer. Buy a half pig, a quarter cow, and a bunch of chickens, and pastured eggs from your neighbors. It will all cost you about $1,500 or less to keep you and your family in local animal products for a whole year. The USDA estimates that the average family spends about $240 a week on groceries. That’s about $12,000 a year, and you just know that’s mostly Pringles and frozen pizza.

Never forget that you are eating an animal. Hopefully, it will be one of my happy animals, or a farmer friend’s animals down the road.

All of our pastured animal products (meat, cheese, and eggs) have the capacity to be high in Omega 3 fatty acids (the good kind), instead of Omega 6s (the kind that are in grains and that we eat way too much of), because good old grass is where those Omega 3 fatty acids come from!

A pile of greasy burgers, fried in trans-fat or canola oil, from some sad feedlot cow, slaughtered in terrifying conditions, packaged by slave labor — this isn’t the world that we want to see. This isn’t the world that we want to create. We’re better then this. Hell, I believe we all deserve to be healthy, and I believe that all of our animals and plants also deserve to be healthy.

So help yourself out and buy your animal products from a farmer. We need you guys to support us, and we want to raise our animals in the best possible way so that we can provide you with the best possible meat.